sweet shop birthday!

last week, my sweet and tiny newborn woke up a wild and happy 2 year old! so after pulling out an appropriate birthday girl outfit:

we put up the birthday banner from last year [i have to admit i love this thing. i hope she wants to put it up when she turns 40!] hard to get a good picture of it though:

and opened up her own little sweet shop for her cousins!

i have seen SOOO many amazingly cute renditions of the "sweet shop" birthday idea that i thought it would be perfect for our happy little girl. we had to plan it all right after a week-long trip to my grandparents, so it wasn't the most organized thing ever! but it was cute and fun and just right for a sweet family party. the perfect phrase for an invitation came to me while browsing ideas months ago, and i ended up "picniking" a fun photo just in time to email it out to everyone:

one of the projects i had to let go of due to limited time was that i wanted to make her a little paper banner over the candy saying "kenna's sweet shop" [similar to the merry christmas one last year]. but we did have a little sign directing our friends to help themselves to a goodie bag/party favor full of candies... mini boxes of nerds, smarties, hershey kisses, dum dums, jelly beans, and candy necklaces!

[still cute despite an almost-out-of-ink print cartridge!]
and the perfectly pink "piece of candy" cake!

even the newest member [until the baby gets here of course!] of our little clan got in on the celebratory action:

& of course, a few other party necessities. i made 2 dozen of these cupcake-sized rice krispy treats & we are still eating them!

there was just enough food, just enough playmates, lots of love and LOTS of candy. all in all, life is pretty good when you're turning 2!

happy birthday little one! & thanks for giving momma a reason to go a little crazy on the party themes!

[ps- we both wore super cute rosette hair clips that i got a few weeks ago at a local craft show. i can't for the life of me make those little rosettes to look right, so i bought us each one and love them! if you're looking for one, her shop is called 'inspired by kate' on etsy... hopefully she'll have some listed after the holidays!]